April 2, 2003 ---_A_U.S._Army_soldier_stands_guard_duty_near_a_burning_oil_well_in_the_Rumaylah_Oil_Fields_in_Southern_Iraq--- U.S. Navy photo by Mate 1st Class Arlo K. Abrahamson
The Wall Street Journal communicates the worries.
The deteriorating
situation in Iraq—a key global oil supplier—reverberated through financial
markets Thursday, sending oil prices sharply higher, pushing U.S. stocks lower
and igniting the latest rally in safe-haven bonds. “Iraq
Scrambles to Defend Baghdad” WSJ 6-10-14
But it goes so much deeper than any oil well.
Our new commitment is to fight preemptive wars by proxy--
not defense of our country, but of big oil’s companies.
But those proxy
forces do not always prove equal to the task, and when they buckle, the United
States finds itself having unwittingly armed its enemies — a problem the Obama
administration has been trying to avoid in Syria by carefully limiting its aid
to the opposition there. The militants who swept into control of Mosul on
Tuesday are believed to be connected to the main Islamist militant group
fighting in Syria. “Arms Windfall for Insurgents as
Iraq City Falls” NYT 6-10-14
“surge” where is they sting? O “Awakening” what so deeply disturbs your sleep? All is violence, violence without end, stirred
up mightily, from 1990 Gulf War onward, as our solution to Iraq’s oil riches.
But who is now our enemy, now our friend?
President Malaki and the Shiites in charge in Baghdad
have been allowing arms shipments [Russian-Iranian] through their country Iraq
to help our newest enemy the Shiite Assad in Syria, while we have armed the
Sunni insurgents through our CIA contacts to depose Assad. Those terrorism-trained Sunnis return to Iraq,
have captured major cities, and march on Baghdad. Iraq’s government, fast
deserted by its own U.S. trained army, now turns to Shiite militias, calls
on us for airstrikes, and is confident we’ll
fight in tandem with our Shiite enemy Iran [remember that axis of evil—Iran,
Iraq, N. Korea] who they’ve invited to send in its crack troops. Our war situation couldn’t be more
complicated. It couldn’t be more ridiculously,
radically evil.
Domination by overwhelming violent force will never
work. Not between countries, not between
religious or ethnic groups, not in our local communities.
In these preemptive proxy wars all points on the compass
turn towards eventual disaster and suffering.
I’m worried that our war politics strategists are certainly intelligent enough
to know this, but are losing any capacity for compassion and common sense.
We the people must strive not to follow false leaders,
and to pray for a conversion from the war-like mentality of eliminating those
we disagree with, compete for resources with.
Instead we’ll learn the true constructive ways to care for each other’s
needs, spiritual and physical—a shared responsibility, of equals, returning to God’s path of real justice and peace. It will take much time and grace to heal these wounds.
The Times Herald called me the late evening of March 18, 2003, to have my comment as the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad began. All the news media had been put on ready alert for the event. I said, and still pray, "Lord have mercy on our souls."
References
To get a better idea of the complexity ---
“Exhausted and
Bereft, Iraqi Soldiers Quit Fight”
NYT 6-10-14 excerpts
The fleeing troops left weapons, vehicles and even their
uniforms behind, as militants took over at least five army installations and
the city’s airport. In a desperate bid to stem the losses, the military was
reduced to bombing its own bases to avoid surrendering more weapons to the enemy. American officials who had asserted that the
$14 billion that the United States had spent on the Iraqi security forces would
prepare them to safeguard the country after American troops left were forced to
ponder images from Mosul of militants parading around captured Humvees. ….
Before the
troops dissolved in Mosul, the army was losing as many as 300 soldiers a day,
between desertions, deaths and injuries, according to a security analyst who
works with the Iraqi government and requested anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak publicly about the military.
With fewer men to face the militants, the army is relying
on artillery and airstrikes — including, human rights workers say, the use of
indiscriminate barrel bombs — increasing the risks to civilians.
For full article
---
“Iraq Militants,
Pushing South, Aim at Capital” NYT
6-11-14 excerpts
In a further
indication of the regional dimensions of the crisis, the government of
President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, facing the same jihadist adversary in its
civil war against a broader array of armed foes, expressed solidarity with the
Iraqi authorities and armed forces, the official SANA news agency reported.
….. Word of the
latest militant advance came as a United Nations agency reported that 500,000
people had fled Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. The International Organization
for Migration, based in Geneva, said the civilians had mainly fled on foot,
because the militants would not let them use vehicles and had taken control of
the airport. Roughly the same number were displaced from Anbar Province in
western Iraq as the militants gained ground there, the organization said.
For full article
---
“Kurdish Fighters
Take a Key Oil City as Militants Advance on Baghdad,” NYT 6-12-14 -
excerpts
Leaders of Iraq’s Kurds, who have carved out their own
autonomous enclave in northern Iraq, said their forces had taken full control
of Kirkuk as government troops abandoned their posts there. “The army
disappeared,” said Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk. ….
Unlike the Iraqi Army, the Kurdish forces, known as pesh
merga, are disciplined and loyal to their leaders and their cause: autonomy and
eventual independence for a Kurdish state. With its oil riches, Kirkuk has long
been at the center of a political and economic dispute between Kurds and
successive Arab governments in Baghdad. …
Residents of Baiji, a city of 200,000 about 110 miles
south of Mosul, [and a major conduit for Iraq’s gas & oil] awoke Wednesday
to find that government checkpoints had been abandoned and that insurgents,
arriving in a column of 60 vehicles, were taking control of parts of the city
without firing a shot, the security officials said. Peter Bouckaert, the
emergency services director for Human Rights Watch, said in a post on Twitter
that the militants had seized the Baiji power station, which supplies
electricity to Baghdad, Kirkuk and Salahuddin Province. …
Some residents who remained in Mosul reported on Thursday
that militants used mosque loudspeakers and leaflets to invite all soldiers,
police officers and other government loyalists to go to the mosques and renounce
their allegiance to the Baghdad authorities or face death. The occupiers also
banned sales of alcohol and cigarettes and ordered women to stay home.
For full article
---
More ---
140614-In Iraq Crisis, a Tangle of Alliances and Enmities
- NYTimes.com
140614-Iraq Rebels Stall North of Baghdad as Residents
Brace for a Siege - NYTimes.com
140615-U.S. Plans to Evacuate Many Embassy Workers - NYT
140614-Oil Industry in Iraq Faces Setback to Revival -
NYTimes.com
Very good stuff.
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